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The Museum of Art Modern and Art Contemporary in Nice,
France is dominated by this sculpture by ???? located in the garden
"Marechal Juin". The cube on top is as big as a
four-story building. I don't know if anyone lives in there.
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Across the street from
the MAMAC is a special events center called the "Acropolis" that has a
number of sculptures surrounding it. To look at the map, it seems
that a number of public places including
the MAMAC and the Acropolis were built over a river that once flowed
through town but has been
pushed underground and the space on top converted into roadways, parks
and public buildings. I am in continued admiration of the way
people here have used every available space. Most of the
sculptures in front of the Acropolis are dated
1985 and must have been part of the inauguration.
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This piece by Micheal
Jarry is close to my interest. It was in a fountain outside of
the Acropolis. A gallery
in old Nice specializes in his work but I'll have to go back sometime
when
it is open (not always a trivial thing in a country that takes two
hours for lunch, kids get Wednesday off from school and galleries are
closed on Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays. There may be some
pattern to it but for now I'm just using the hit and miss
approach.)
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This piece by Arman (Armand Fernandez) is pretty
typical of a large series of his work: Cellos sliced on a bandsaw and
reassembled. This bronze is over twenty feet tall. It and
the previous sculptures were all "Don de l'artiste a la ville de Nice"
(given by the artist to the city of Nice.) This is a
disturbing trend. I have noticed that most all of the public
sculptures were donated by the artist, including many of those in the
museum. I am beginning to understand why so many serious artists
claim to have given up the idea of ever selling there work.
Everybody expects you to give it away.
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Arman's earlier work
includes this one "Accumulation Renaut 104" 1967 which is much
more interesting to me. It takes a common and recognizable
object and uses it to create a new form based on a fairly strict
set of circumstances: the coincidental way in which repeated elements
of one manufactured form happen to fit together. It's
great. Arman has a number of pieces that are assembled from
repeated automotive body parts but this one is the best for me so
far. Another artist, Cesar (Cesar Baldaccini), did a series of
"crushed cars" at about the same time. Arman and Cesar were both
members of "Neuveau Realisme" (New Realists) which had the stated goal
of "overcoming" the gap between art and life by commenting on
consumerism. Mostly, they just made fun of Art and threw some
really wild parties.
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A 12 foot tall dress
made of clear plastic water bottles supported on a clear plastic
Plexiglas frame (La Regina, Enrica Borghi 1999). Certainly a
comment on consumerism and a
culture that can support disposable plastic bottles by the millions to
satisfy a "need" for our H2O to come from far away exotic places.
Note that the dress, larger-than-life, comes complete with a
crown. Most all of the patrons to this exhibit are living a
life-style that would have been envied by the royalty of a few
generations ago.
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The close
up of the Dress. Disposable bottles stitched together using
disposable trash bags--both a fleeting circumstance of our oil-based
economy. A truly splendid demonstration of this concept,
complete with the lovely irony in a country so concerned
with "the people" that everything comes with a fee including a drink of
water and coping with the consequence of drinking it.
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It is hard to find a public
place in Nice that does not have some kind of fee associated with
it. Parking, driving on the highway, large portions of the
beach. There are so many tourists that even the "public" library
across the street from the museum has a full-time guard in charge of
the bathroom--I found out
when I was treated like a thief for not noticing the sign that clearly
stated, in French, that I should pay 35 centimes. At right is a
coin-operated toilet that has an elaborate system to hose down the
entire stall
from top to bottom after every use. Very sanitary, and
only 30 centimes except that it has no seat and no toilet paper--no
kidding--just running water to wash your hand. I should admit,
however, that it is legal to pee in
public. The result being that you must carry exact change and
your own paper at all
times if you want privacy and expect that every quiet corner in the
city will smell like urine.
That's ok, there are so many dog owners that the sidewalks are straight
out of the middle-ages anyway. (Smaller towns seem all
to have freely flowing water fountains, free toilets in convenient
places and much more courteous dog owners.)
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